The Ten Commandments: II
“American Idols”
Exodus 20:4-6
Romans 1:18-25
Years ago, when I was living right
next door to the church, I came home a bit early for lunch, made a sandwich,
opened a soft drink and went into the family room to catch a bit of the news. When I turned on the T.V. a talk show came was
just finishing up. On the screen were
several women and men dressed in provocative clothing. Beneath the picture, electronically inscribed
on the screen was the subject for the program.
It read, "Strippers for God".
Well, that caught my attention
because I had not expected anything nearly so theological. Evidently, these people who barred it all for
a living, claimed to be Bible believing, spirit-filled, born-again Christians; so,
the discussion centered on the question, “Can one be a stripper and a Christian
at the same time?” Evidently there was quite some disagreement between the
people up front and those in the audience who thought this might be an
occupation that could lead others into sin.
When someone from the audience questioned the possibility that you could
do both in good conscience, one of the folks up front irately responded,
"Well, my god thinks it’s alright; if your god doesn't - well that's too
bad!"
That’s when I started to talk to the
T.V. "Wait a minute, there is just one God. There is not my god, not your god, not his
god, not her god. There is just one God,
“the Lord almighty, maker of heaven and earth."[1] One of the key texts in all of scripture, the
Shema, says so plainly, "Hear O Israel, The Lord is God; the Lord is One
God."[2]
Who God is and what is God’s Will though
is clearly up for discussion and often-heated debate. That’s why people say, “my God thinks this is
alright; if your God doesn’t, well that’s too bad.” But, is the nature and character of God
something for us to determine all by ourselves, or has God revealed himself to
us in ways that go beyond our personal preference and prejudice?
People of the book believe God has
revealed himself in the words spoken and written and expressed in the “word
made flesh”.[3] The Ten
Commandments are a part of that revelation so they are more than rules designed
to tell us what to do and how to live.
They also tell us something about the nature and character of God. They integrate social order with cosmic
order. That is why we pray each Sunday,
“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”[4]
The second commandment tells us
something very specific about the nature and character of God, which we ought
to heed to our benefit lest we ignore to our peril. Before we explore its meaning, let us pray:
By your Word and Spirit, speak to
us, O Lord, so that we may better understand you and so better understand
ourselves. Let our worship be directed
toward you and you alone we pray. Amen.
Last week I began this series of
sermons on the Ten Commandments. The first commandment determines, “Whom do we
worship?” The second commandment speaks
to the question, “How do we worship?”
This must be important because this is the only commandment that ends
with a blessing that follows obedience and a curse for neglect.
It begins, “You shall not make for
yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth
below.” This could refer two different
sins. It could mean that we are not
permitted to make a physical representation, to paint a picture or carve a
statue of God almighty maker of heaven and earth, or it could refer to worship
of a picture or statue of another god, or it could mean both.
Let’s consider the first. Moses you remember received these
commandments, this light for our journey on Mount Sinai. He was up there for a long time, about six
weeks during which he prayed, meditated and communed with the Lord. For him this was literally a mountaintop
experience that changed his life.
Down below though, the people grew
restless. Their leader was missing and
they didn’t know what to do. Remember,
freedom for them was a new experience and so it was little scary. They were used to taking orders from the
masters in Egypt, so it was easy to transfer their loyalty to a new leader in Moses
- but he was nowhere to be found. They
began to mumble and grumble and talk about the good old days in Egypt when they
at least had something to eat and a roof over their heads.[5]
Aaron, the smooth talking
second-in-command became nervous about this discontent and worried they might
revolt and turn their anger on him. So,
when some of these malcontents said to Aaron, “Come let us make gods who will
go before us.” Aaron, a leader who only followed the latest polls, thought this
was a good idea because it would give the people something on which the people
might focus the fears so he said, “Great idea, “take off the gold earrings that
your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.”[6]
Now
it is interesting to note that everyone was called to make a sacrifice except
Aaron and the other clan leaders. While
the wives and children of the people threw their valuables into the pot, Aaron
and his leadership team evidently held onto their own. That would not the last time a leader called
the people to make a sacrifice he was not willing to make.
Anyway,
scripture says they threw all their jewelry into a pot and melted it down,
poured it into a mold in the shape of a calf.
Then they said, “These are you gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of
Egypt.”[7] They sacrificed a lamb to this statue and
then threw a big party, because what else are you going to do with lamb chops
mutton after you’ve barbequed them for you god?
Now,
don’t miss the point here. As far as
Aaron was concerned this golden calf did not represent a new god. Aaron used the same name for this god as he
did for the Lord who brought them out of Egypt.
He was still worshipping the right God, but he was doing it in the wrong
way.
We
know this because when the Lord told Moses that the people had already
obliterated the first and second commandments, Moses stormed down the mountain,
crashed their party, and smashed the tablets containing these commandments
against a rock, and then kicked the golden calf into the fire.
Aaron,
sensitive soul that he was, realized he might have done something wrong, but
you have to admire his pluck, because he then explained to Moses how it wasn’t
really his fault. He was just giving the people what they wanted. He was going
with the flow. He went along to get
along. Then he said, and you can look it
up in the Bible, “They gave me their gold, I threw it into the fire and poof,
presto change-o, out popped a golden calf.”[8] It was amazing, he said, a miracle!
That’s
what happens when you start worshipping God in the wrong way. Truth takes a
back seat to experience. Spiritual
growth becomes secondary. Feelings are
what matter and the desire for reaching yet another spiritual “high” becomes
primary. The important question becomes,
“How did this worship experience make me feel?”
When that happens
faith becomes utterly dependent on and intertwined with the way we feel at a
particular moment. It will then bounce up and down like a rudderless ship on
the sea. Christmas Eve candlelight and
“Silent Night” leaves us feeling, “God is in his heaven and all is right with
the world.” A month later though when
the hymns are not to your liking and the preaching isn’t quite hitting it and
you begin to wonder if God is here at all.
Now,
don’t misunderstand. Right worship is not limited to a particular liturgy or
form of worship. It does not matter if
you pray with your hands held high in the air or folded on your lap. It is not
defined by words that are written down or by tongues that flow freely. Right worship may be loud and demonstrative
or may be soft and reflective. It may
use organs or guitars or no instruments at all. Right worship is right because
it accepts no substitutes. Jesus said,
“True worshipper worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.”[9] Faith linked to Spirit and Truth then becomes
more a matter of trust than feelings. It
is confidence born from the conviction that the Lord will never leave nor forsake
and belief in his promise “that he will be where two or three are gathered in
his name.”[10]
The
second form of idolatry that this command forbids was best described by and
commonly attributed to Augustine, a fourth century Christian theologian. He said, “Idolatry is worshipping anything
that ought to be used and using the one who ought to be worshipped.”
A
good example of that is also found in the exodus story. Remember, as a result of their disobedience
of this second commandment, God forbade that generation to enter the Promised
Land and so they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. In this barren land there were snakes, lots
of snake, poisonous snakes. With all
these people rambling around it was inevitable some of them got bit, so they
asked Moses for a snakebite kit. He
didn’t have one so he asked the Lord and the Lord told Moses to craft a snake
made of bronze, put it on a pole and hold it up. It someone got bit they were to simply look
at the pole and they would be healed.[11] So, they did and it worked for as long as
they languished in the wilderness.
That’s
the last we see of that pole for seven hundred years. In the book of Second
Kings Hezekiah assumes the throne, but he inherited a kingdom that was morally
corrupt and spiritually bankrupt. He
hoped to light a fire of revival in his county because he believed the
important challenges any country faces are often more spiritual than political.
So, one of the first
things he did was to take Moses’ snake-on-a-stick and smash it to bits. Why?
Sometime during those past seven hundred years people began to worship
the stick rather than the Lord. They even gave it a name – “Nehushtan.[12] They substituted a thing for God.
That
is our great temptation. All of us
prefer to worship that which we can make with our own hands, because then we
can control it. We can shape it, change
it and manipulate it to stand for what we want so that we can do what we want
to do. Even if that means we take off
our clothes in public for the purpose of tempting others into sin.
That’s why we say,
“My god thinks it is O.K., if your god doesn’t, well that’s too bad!” But, the
Apostle Paul warned us, “not to exchange the truth about God for a lie, lest we
worship created things rather than the Creator.”[13] While we prefer to fashion gods in our image,
because idols make no demands, we must remember they can neither forgive or
heal or save or guide. Better we allow
ourselves to be molded into his image than shaping his into ours.
The
next part of this command causes consternation for some, “you shall make for
yourself any graven image, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God.”[14]
Today,
jealousy is usually seen as a petty and possessive causing all kinds of
problems in relationships. Some of you
may have been victims of that kind of confining control, so the notion that God
is like some insecure suitor is troubling.
To
be protective is not always a bad thing though, for if you love someone and
truly see a danger ahead you do want to warn him or her. Parents feel that way every time their
teenager takes the family car out for the first time. They know their kids will
hear other voices from friends and even enemies who will encourage them to go
faster and farther than they should.
They know the movies they watch and the songs they listen to make light
of drinking and driving, but parents are jealous and hope their children will
heed their advice alone and not that of another sixteen year old. They hope they will follow the rules of the
road because they know the consequences of not following for even one
thoughtless moment can be severe. It can be a matter of life or death.
That
may be why this fearful curse is added at the end, “the sins of the fathers to
the third and fourth generation will be visited on those who hate me”, says the
Lord. This is not the American way. Children are not held responsible for the
debts or the crimes of their parents. To
do so strikes us as unfair. Even
scripture itself speaks to that notion.
In Deuteronomy we read, “Only for his or her own crimes may a person be
put to death.”[15]
The prophet Ezekiel confirms this
understanding.[16]
So,
what are we to make of this verse? Well,
I’m not sure, but I do know our actions bear consequences not only for us, but
also for those who are close to us. Any
student of family dynamics will tell you that family traits and attitudes both
good and bad make their way down through the generations.
I
understood that the first time I heard my father’s voice come through mine when
I began to teach my boys the way I thought they should go. I began to say things to them that my father
said to me when I was growing up, and that’s when I realized our parents live
in us long after we’ve moved out of the house and long after they’re gone. So, it is important we think about what we
say and teach our children.
The
Lord wants the best for you and doesn’t want you to settle for second best and
that’s why these words are so strong.
God gave us Ten Commandments and the first deal with worship because God
knows worship is the window to our souls.
It reveals what we really care about.
One
of the ways we figure that out each Sunday morning is by what question we
ask. If it is, “What did I get out of
this?” then the focus is clearly on you and your feelings and that’s a shallow
pool. If it is, “What did I bring to the
Lord?” then you’ve rightly seen this as time and attention given to God. You’ve rightly understood that worship is a
matter of spirit and truth and those waters run deep.
So,
we must choose, not between “my god and your god”, but between the Lord God
maker of heaven and earth and all the other voices we hear, all the other
demands for our time and attention, all the other things and even people who
would usurp the Lord’s place and presence in our lives. We must decide if we “will have no other gods
before the Lord”. We must choose to worship the Lord in “spirit and truth” and
so refrain from the temptation to devote the most important part of ourselves
to things, or people, or even our own feelings.
Do
so and God promises, “To show love to a thousand generations of those who love
him and keep his commandments.”[17] That is a promise you can hold onto now and
forever. Amen.